Most movie interviews are a job or work for the journalist, but sometimes
you find yourself in the presence of a genius, and then you grow still
and attentive, trying to remember everything. So it was when I interviewed
Bergman, Hitchcock and Fellini, and so it was again in September, when
I interviewed Hayao Miyazaki in Toronto.

The name is unfamiliar to you because, while you love movies, you have
not yet discovered that you would love his movies. He and his Studio Ghibli
collaborator Isao Takahata ("Grave of the Fireflies") are arguably the
greatest directors of animation in the world. John Lasseter, who directed
"Toy Story," says when he's stuck for inspiration, he watches a Miyazaki
film and the log jam breaks. Miyazaki's most recent film, "Princess Mononoke"
(opening Friday at the McClurg Court), broke every record at the Japanese
box office, passing even "E.T." before finally being dethroned by "Titanic."

Yet few people in North America know his name because when we think
of animation (which the Japanese call "anime"), we think of Disney. And
although we spend a quarter of a billion dollars on each new Disney cartoon,
we are shy of work by anyone else. So let me point out that Miyazaki's
lifework has been purchased for this continent by Disney itself, and "Princess
Mononoke" is being released by Disney's Miramax. Since it comes with the
Disney seal, just pretend it's the next title after "Lion King" or "Tarzan."

Actually, it is much more than that--a visionary epic set at the dawn
of the Iron Age, based on Japanese myths about a time when men could still
speak with the spirits of animals and nature. It is not a "children's movie,"
although any child old enough to have an intelligent conversation about
a film will probably love it. It is a real movie, using animation instead
of live action, but expressing the vision of its maker, a man whose work
has given me some of my best moments as a moviegoer.

He is standing in the room with me now, giving a little half-bow like
a businessman, smiling, indicating his translator with an apologetic hand.
He is known as a taskmaster, a workaholic who personally approves every
one of the tens of thousands of drawings that go into his films. I expect
someone exacting, like Bergman, or forbidding, like Hitchcock, and here
is a man who seems pleased as punch to be at the Toronto Film Festival.

Q. I think that "Princess Mononoke" should be nominated for best
picture.

A. [Little bow.] Thank you.

Q. Why do you choose to make animation instead of live action?

A. Because I had my heart stolen by animated features.

Q. When you were a little boy?

A. When I was 10 and when I was 23.

Q. Do you remember the titles?

A. The "White Serpent Story." It was the first Japanese animated
feature ever made. And when I was 23, there was a Soviet film called "The
Snow Queen." I loved the Disney films, but they never moved me to make
this my life's work. They didn't have that effect on me. Technically, obviously,
"White Serpent Story" was far below anything that Disney was creating.
I could understand and sympathize with the hearts of the people who were
portrayed on the screen. I think that's why they stole my heart.

Q. In this country animation's for family pictures, but in Japan
it's considered to be equal with live action. Is that true?

A. It's actually not true that anime is perceived as always fitting
for adults. Unfortunately, of the many films in the anime genre, there
are very few that I could actually recommend to you wholeheartedly. There's
a lot of sexual exploitation of women, and explicit and graphic violence
for its own sake. And of course with anime TV series, the budget is so
low there's no room to maneuver or play.

Q. I was told that Miyazaki-san personally drew about 80,000
of the frames in "Princess Mononoke." Is that. . . .

A. I've never actually counted how many I physically drew myself,
but I'm deeply involved in checking and redrawing and touching up all the
artwork that comes from the animators. So that's maybe where that legend
comes from.

Q. What was your plan when you made your first film?

A. I thought I'd take a first step, calmly measuring that step
without thinking about the long, long road ahead.

Q. In "Princess Mononoke" there is a marvelous monster, a boar
monster with flesh of snakes, and it's one of the most amazing sights I've
ever seen in a film. It couldn't be done with "realistic" special effects--it
would look like a mess. Only animation could make it clear.

A. You're absolutely right. We tried to let the computer handle
it, but it didn't work out at all, so we all joined forces and created
the monster.

Q. I didn't even mean special effects with animation, but special
effects in a live action picture. If you tried to make a live action picture
with that monster, it wouldn't show up; you couldn't see the individual
snakes. It seems that animation can make things more clear than reality
itself.

A. That's what I was striving for! I'm a very emotional person,
and when I get enraged or furious, I feel like black insects crawl out
of my pores. My staff are more peaceful, so it was difficult for them to
imagine what it feels like to be taken over by uncontrollable rage.

Q. So the boar monster is based on the artist himself? On you?

A. Perhaps. I believe that rage and violent aggression are essential
parts of us as human beings, and I think it's absolutely impossible to
eliminate that impulse. The issue we confront as human beings is how to
control and manage that impulse. I know that small children will watch
this film, but I intentionally chose not to shield them from that very
obvious and apparent reality.

Q. So you think it should have a G rating? [It has been rated
PG-13.]

A. In Japan we don't have that kind of rating system. We have
adult films, but that's the only category we have. When I began making
this film I thought I didn't want it to be seen by young children. But
the closer I came to completion, the more I began to believe that younger
children would be able to intuitively understand the message. What my producer
decided, for the TV advertising in Japan, was to show the most shocking
scenes. Of course that works as a marketing technique, but also we really
wanted parents to know what they were getting into, so there wouldn't be
any nasty surprises and they could make an intelligent decision.

Q. I'm frustrated that in North America people automatically
go to the new Disney picture, but it's very hard to get them to go to any
other animation. For example, "The Iron Giant" didn't do too well recently.
What are you doing to spread the word that "Princess Mononoke" is the film
to see, even if it doesn't have the little Disney logo?

A. [Smiles.] You see me here. That's what I'm here for.

Q. Every video store in North America has an anime section with
hundreds of tapes. Yet these films rarely play in theaters. Who is watching
these tapes? There must be millions of fans hidden away somewhere because
even in the small towns they have Japanese anime. It must be an audience
that has discovered them without any media push.

A. The situation isn't that different in Japan. If you play anime
in the theaters, not all that many people come to see it, even if there
are tremendous video sales of the same product. So maybe in their own minds
they've created a delineation between those movies you see in a theater
and those you enjoy at home.

Q. But "Princess Mononoke" was the biggest hit in Japan until
"Titanic.". . .

A. Frankly, that left me baffled. I have no idea why that happened.
None of our films at Ghibli Studio up to "Totoro" were able to make back
their budgets simply from theatrical releases. We got into the black from
secondary rights. The first time we went into the black from theatrical
was with "Kiki's Delivery Service." So it's not like we started in Japan
with some ready-made brilliant active theatergoing audience for anime.

Q. You had to develop your audience. . . .

A. Not exactly. At Ghibli the direction we've always intentionally
taken is that every time the audience develops an expectation of what we're
going to deliver, we immediately betray it with the next film.

Q. In your drawings you often exaggerate the mouth and eyes to
convey extreme emotion; in Disney's new "Tarzan" picture, baby Tarzan seems
to look exactly like a Miyazaki character, as if the Americans have been
studying his work.

A. [Chuckles.] Actually our work depends on how much we can appropriate
from other people's work! Painting, music, films, literature . . . it's
all grist for the mill. We think of our work not as individual creativity
but like a lifelong baton relay. Your work passes through your body and
your life; you transform it into something, and then you pass it on to
the next generation.

Q. Is "Princess Mononoke" based upon Japanese myths?

A. So much of what I've absorbed as myth is now a part of myself
that it's difficult for me to delineate what's original, what's myth, what's
history, what's me, what belongs to the past. But I think that many of
the elements in the film were commonsense, intuitive understanding for
Japanese people of my generation. The fact that there were Japanese people
at that time working in the woods, felling trees in order to have the fire
to make forged steel and iron, that is historical fact. Fortunately, Japan
is blessed with abundant rainfall, so we could keep on felling trees without
losing the forest, and the forest myths.

Q. Someone told me that Miyazaki-san is not going to make another
film. Surely that is not true.

A. I make every film believing that it will be my last. But the
truth is at my age [58] I can no longer afford the intensive labor that
I spent on the last one. If my staff will agree to my participating as
a director without the intensity of labor, then there are many more films
that I would like to do.

Q. But you have this staff, so you tell them to?

A. [Smiles.] Not that easy.

Q. They must love you, though, and want to work with you.

A. I'm always a dictator.

Q. One last question. My wife and I were in Japan and we were
able to meet two men who had been appointed Living National Treasures--a
man who makes pots and a man who makes kimonos. You must be a national
treasure, too.

A. Don't make me a Living National Treasure, please! Because
I want to be able to always have the possibility of making outrageous films.